Projects Working on the Graphics Desk, July 1976

A status memo I sent to John Waggoner, the Chicago Tribune‘s news editor, on July 26, 1976, listing what the Graphics Desk had in the works. It’s a snapshot of how an information graphics operation planned its projects — a mix of hard-news color coverage, explanatory packages, and long-lead background reports.

The list runs from the Republican convention (delegate totals for Ford and Reagan, Page One color on August 17 and 19) to a package on earthquakes aimed at back-to-school time:

Other stories on the U.S.’s biggest known quake which was in the Midwest in 1812 (and moved the Mississippi River 30 miles) and what it’s like to live in California under the threat of a major quake, written by Mike Coakley in Los Angeles.

Also on the schedule: a Labor Day report on American workers, with charts on how pay, the work week and occupations had changed since the 1800s; a page on the fight to expand the Indiana Dunes park, written by Casey Bukro; and a photo/background page on the West Bank, with maps of major trouble spots and a sidebar on Jerusalem.

The “other projects working” section is a reminder of what the mid-1970s looked like from a newsroom. The metric system:

Charts, tables, photos to make it easier on the reader who can’t tell a meter from a liter.

Plus solar energy (Bukro writing), “Weapons of the future” on Black Box technology (Jim Coates in Washington), and space after Viking, with the community turning its sights to the shuttle (Jim Pearre researching).

Copies went to Max McCrohon, Bill Jones, Joe Leonard, Denis Gosselin and Dick Leslie.